Dramatized Adaptation

In the harsh territory near what used to be the Western badlands, Ryan Cawdor and his crew join the search for the wreck of a crashed space station. But in the ruins of Las Vegas, he falls prey to a maelstrom of violence. Hostage in a bitter war between regional barons, Ryan finds that even his best effort is an odds-even gamble and that his son's life may depend on the whims of destiny.

Ruled by a perverse and malevolent Nature, roamed by lawless remnants of humanity, the Deathlands is what's left of the continental US after a nuclear apocalypse unleashed hell on Earth. Here, only a few can survive and still retain hope for the future and of these, none are more determined than the exiled son of a coastal baron and his closely knit band of warrior survivalists. The years of struggle in the new reality made Ryan Cawdor a bold and undisputed leader, but now he may have to contend with his former mentor, the enigmatic Trader.

Emerging from a gateway in New England, Ryan Cawdor and his band of wayfaring survivalists ally themselves with a group of women warriors who join their quest to locate the Illuminated Ones, a mysterious pre-dark secret who may possess secret knowledge of Deathlands. Yet their pursuit becomes treacherous, for their quarry has unleashed a deadly plague in the twisted plot to cleanse the Earth.

In L. E. Modesitt, Jr.'s The Magic Engineer, Dorrin, a young scion of Order magicians, is interested in forbidden knowledge - the working of machines. He is the Leonardo da Vinci of his age, but his insights violate the rules of the Order magic of Recluce, and in order to pursue his invention he must go into exile - in the lands of Chaos. Tortured by the knowledge that to preserve Order he must create new devices for war, Dorrin stands between Recluce and the forces of the Chaos that seek to destroy it.

In the Mongollon Rim country of Arizona, Frank Morgan walked into a blood feud between two powerful cattle barons. When the shooting stopped and the smoke cleared, Morgan had killed one of the men. Now, the dead man’s family wants revenge and the surviving rancher wants to silence Frank Morgan forever. Suddenly, the last gunfighter is on his own against a devil’s brew of murderous enemies. And amidst the lying and the killing is the beautiful young woman whose father Frank shot down - and one last thing worth dying to defend....

Forged in the fires of conflict, the Iron Kingdoms is a fantastic realm where the combined power of magic and technology thunders across a landscape shaped by war. Dominating the field of battle are rare individuals who have mastered both arcane and martial combat and who boldly lead mighty armies in the ongoing struggle to claim victory over these ancient lands. In the Undercity of Corvis, where mercenaries and criminals blur the lines between them, a ruthless crime lord has made a bold move to establish a stranglehold on Corvis’ underworld and make it his own.

In the depth of a cruel High Lonesome winter comes a cryptic message for Smoke Jensen. The letter tells of skullduggery by gold barons, railroad magnates, and Chinese tongs in San Francisco. Smoke knows only one person in the city by the bay: the well-rounded, open-natured Francie, mistress of one of the town's most notorious pleasure palaces.

Two centuries after the nukecaust, consolidation of power is the goal for those who would rule the slowly emerging new America. Ryan Cawdor has spent his lifetime roaming the Deathlands, seeking out the secrets of pre-dark Technology. But so have others who are now the future's greatest threat. For a sinister cadre has dared to seize power...and damn Deathlands to a new kind of hell.

Magus is a steel-eyed cybernetic sociopath whose bloodlust knows no bounds. Now, the savage Pacific isles above a long-submerged Southern California are his new arena. Ryan wants a second chance to chill Magus once and for all. But as the ringmaster of torture orchestrates his magnum opus, a stunning sideshow is under way. Pre-Dark white coats believe they have found the key to turn back time and intercept the deed that erased human history.

Hunted across the southwestern desert, Ryan doesn't know who wants him dead badly enough to slaughter innocents as a way of luring him into the open. But the advanced tech his pursuers are using is unknown in Deathlands, created by the most brilliant minds of 20th-century America. Now evil is alive and stalking the warrior group. His name is Delphi and he's prepared to reclaim the one man who understands with brutal certainty how time can be controlled, manipulated, remapped.

The endless struggle for power among the barons is a way of life in Deathlands, but Ryan Cawdor and his warrior survivalists take no sides — unless forced to. But as the land around the Rio Grande reaches the breaking point in a bitter war, the companions are harnessed into battle, moving toward a grim confrontation with an old enemy whose secret stockpile of 21st-century nerve gas is poised to unleash infinite madness once more upon a ravaged Earth.

Joey Wells has a score to settle in Pueblo: Find Jacob Murdock and the band of vaqueros who attacked his wife and drown them in their own stinking blood. Smoke Jensen, the trigger-ready legend of the "High Lonesome," is more than willing to strap on a brace of 45's to help out Wells - especially if it involves nailing some dirty renegades to the wall. But things are tougher than Jensen imagined. Murdock and his men aren't just hiding out in Pueblo - they've taken it over.

As peace talks proceed between the Low Kingdoms and the country of Outremer, Hawk and Fisher are assigned to work with the Guard's SWAT (Special Wizardry And Tactics) team to stop a riot in Haven's largest prison. The riot turns out to be a cover for something much more elaborate and dangerous, involving a renegade sorcerer, a terrorist who will stop at nothing to undermine the peace negotiations and an ancient magical secret.

Archaeologist Annja Creed narrowly escapes an attack by unknown figures when she tries to collect a package near her loft. She later learns that the sender — an old colleague named Fellini — has been brutally murdered. Fellini had been researching the Hammer of Thor, the Norse god of thunder, and had linked it to a Viking warrior and a 12th-century Latvian village. A coded message in Fellini's package leads Annja on a wild chase along the canals of Venice to Latvia for more clues to an ancient treasure.

David Valentine resigns as a Wolf militia, and accepts an offer to become a Cat, one of the stealthy warriors trained to spy on, and go toe-to-toe with the Reapers. Under the command of his mentor, Smoke, Val's first mission is to enter the Kurian zone and investigate "The Twisted Cross", a strike force of alien-human hybrids, possessing the skills of combat veterans and the hunger of the Reapers....Along the way he befriends a powerful alien, a Grog named Anh-Ka, who declares David his blood brother after Valentine nurses him back from death.

Pregnancy has turned FBI Agent Cynna Weaver's whole life upside down. Lupus sorcerer Cullen Seabourne is thrilled to be a father, but what does Cynna know about kids? Her mother was a drunk and her father abandoned his family. Or so she's always believed.... As Cynna is trying to wrap her head around this problem, a new one pops up in the form of a delegation from another realm. They want to take Cynna and Cullen back with them - to meet her long-lost father and find a mysterious medallion.

Lily learns she was right. Tom Weng - a powerful sorcerer allied with the Old One who keeps trying to take over the world - is still alive. But that's not the worst. Weng is a dragon spawn, the product of a botched hatching given a human form in an attempt to keep him from going mad. A failed attempt.

In the altered reality of the Deathlands, America's coastal waters haven't escaped the ravages of the nukecaust, but the awesome power of the oceans still rules here. It's a power that will let Ryan Cawdor, first among post-holocaust survivors, ride the crest of victory — or consign his woman to the raging depths. Emerging from a gateway on the ruins of the Georgia coastline, Ryan Cawdor and his warrior survivalists embark on a voyage up the Atlantic coast. But treachery awaits as they're beset by pirates, then a violent storm.

Ryan travels to the snowy wastes north of the 49th parallel to rescue his young son, enslaved in a mining colony. In this forbidding landscape, one of Ryan's oldest enemies lies in wait, orchestrating a deadly finale to their private war. In the biting cold, Ryan must battle a legion of hunter androids designed to track and kill any intruders with ruthless ingenuity. But for Ryan Cawdor, the need to save his son is greater than any threat the one-eyed warrior may encounter.

The nuclear exchange that ripped apart the world destroyed a way of life thousands of years in the making. Now, generations after the nuclear blight, Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior survivalists try to reclaim the hostile land, led by an undimmed vision of a better future. Hard on the heels of their escape from a powerful baroness, the wayfarers arrive at the shore of the might Mississippi. As if whisked back in time, they find themselves passengers on a riverboat plying the waters and offering every gambling pleasure.